A scuffle broke out in the early part of the Great Lakes Valley Conference cross-country championships, hosted Saturday in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Monday the GLVC issued a public statement reprimanding two student athletes and suspending both from upcoming NCAA Division II competitions.

Because of the incident, Joel Keller of the University of Indianapolis, and Nick Terreni of Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, will be prohibited from participating in the November 7 NCAA Division II Regional meet in Evansville, Illinois. Terreni will also be required to sit out the 2016 GLVC indoor and outdoor track and field championship meets, although he will remain eligible to participate in regular season competitions during the two track seasons.

The altercation happened in the race’s opening quarter mile. Three athletes—Keller and Terreni as well as Keller’s Indianapolis teammate Kameron Casey—were involved, although it is not known what set off the incident. A brief Flotrack video segment[2] about 200 meters into the race shows a runner punching another athlete in the face. Casey shared a postrace image of himself with a noticeably swollen black eye on Twitter. That photo and additional video posted to YouTube have since been removed.

All three athletes managed to finish the 8K race. Meet officials on Saturday disqualified Keller and Terreni, who do not appear anywhere in the results[3]. Casey finished 17th overall and was the second scorer for Indianapolis.

Keller’s disqualification likely played into final team scoring, as a year ago he finished 14th in the GLVC championships to lead the Greyhounds to a fifth-place finish. On Saturday, Indianapolis ended up fourth, 14 points behind third-place Bellarmine. Truman State finished eighth with 253 points.

In a written statement, GLVC Commissioner Jim Naumovich said the conduct of Keller and Terreni was in violation of conference prohibitions against “intimidating actions, fighting, attempts to injure, and any other malicious or violent conduct.”

The statement also expressed regret that the incident ended up on social media.

“It is profoundly disappointing that representatives of another Conference member institution that captured the misconduct on video felt compelled to share the incident on social media,” the statement read. “The actions of those individuals changed the entire discourse of the GLVC Cross Country Championships and subsequently damaged the reputation of both our sport and our league.”

Athletic departments at Indianapolis and Truman State issued statements saying that they are accepting the suspensions.